Nier — So Close but Yet So Far *Badum Tish*
Nier is a bit of a conundrum of a game, I must admit. I originally picked up this game because, admittedly, I am a Square-Enix fanboy. They, once again, managed to pull me to their side with Final Fantasy XIII, and foolishly believing that Square-Enix’s day had come again, I picked up Nier without a second thought. Unfortunately, that second thought was more than warranted and I am kicking myself now for being blinded by Square-Enix’s glltz and glitter. Nier, like many other non-rpg Square-Enix titles, falls short in most areas, and this time around it doesn’t even have the Square-Enix eye-candy to back it up. Yes, this is a Square-Enix game that isn’t visually stunning, and while some moments of gameplay do make up for this fact, others just tend to drag it down further into mediocrity. All in all, Nier was astoundingly average which, for Square-Enix, is always disappointing.
Nier is a combination Action, Adventure, RPG, Platformer, Bullet Hell, Puzzle Game, Farming Simulator … you heard me! The meat of the game is the adventure-style gameplay. Nier is something that is closest akin to Zelda, in that it is an adventure that spans a large overworld that you get to see more of as the game goes on via increasing your character’s abilities and triggering important events in the world. However, the game is very intent on making combat feel like God of War, with immense bosses and hordes of smaller enemies to vanquish. In theory this should work out OK but in practice there are some pretty big flaws.
For one, the game has no “lock-on” function, and unlike Kratos who has a weapon with a range seven times his body length, Nier (yes that is the main character’s name) has tiny little swords that easily whiff if you flail it around too much. This sucks because flailing is just about everything you do in Nier. There aren’t any deep or complex combos and the majority of combat falls to button mashing far too often. There is a magic system, but most of your spells are admittedly quite useless. You will find the one or two spells that are worth a damn in the game and ride them till the end when they are broken anyway.
The game is primarily mission based, which works well with the large open worlds you get to traverse. However, only the main story missions are entertaining in any way. Most of the side missions have you fleshing out your town guardian position with menial jobs such as slaughtering sheep, tending to a garden, and any number of fetch quests for the drooling townspeople who seem to be unable to go to the store themselves. Luckily enough, you don’t have to grind too hard to get anywhere in this game so you can just as easily skip most of the side missions to continue along the main story, although at that point you wonder why the missions even exist in the first place.
The massive battles with huge bosses are probably the biggest draw to Nier. Enemies have a habit of firing attacks in large screen-filling patterns, which makes the game feel like a 3-D bullet hell game, which is kind of cool. However, maneuvering between said patterns is far too easy and you can actually just block all of the bullets anyway so the allure is lost after the first few fights.
Dungeons are kind of fun, as they switch your perspective several times. At one point you are roaming around a 3-D world, and then at other points you’ll find yourself in a top-down dungeon, or a 2-D platforming section. Platforming feels clunky at best, and the game was certainly not developed to give Mario a run for his money, however, the game is immensely forgiving and missing a jump or two does little other than cost you some easily recoverable life. In short, the jumping is tedious but the game’s forgiving nature keeps it from being too frustrating. Puzzles in Nier are some of its worst offenders, featuring nothing more than the box and switch puzzles we have seen in every other game that has come before it. However, once again they are not frustrating, mostly because we have seen them all before and thus easily know their solutions.
The high point of Nier is certainly its story. Square-Enix has always been good at telling tales, and this wonky crusade for the cure for your daughter’s disease quickly spirals into a much enjoyed insanity, eventually hitting the conspiracy and ancient dark evil plot hooks that most Square-Enix RPGs hit on. The characters are interesting, and their voice acting is spot on … most of the time. If there is anything that will keep you going in Nier, it’s the prospect of seeing what happens next.
However, the low point of Nier is by far its presentation. The graphics look very last generation, and while some character models are impressive, the vast environments you explore are mostly bland and low resolution. There isn’t much variety in these environments either, with only four main dungeons to travel and many bouts of backtracking causing you to visit them all again. The music is repetitive and the sound effects feel like stock sounds you might get in a free CD.
I can see someone having fun with Nier … hell I can admit I had a little bit of fun with Nier … but my question is: Why? Nier is underwhelming in almost every way . It isn’t bad, and I’ve seen far worse crimes against nature in the video game world than a poor camera system and flat graphics. I know I picked up Nier because I had run out of games to play on my long wait up to the release of Trauma Team, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Red Dead Redemption, but I wouldn’t have gotten it otherwise. As I said before Nier CAN be fun … hell I’ll even say it IS fun … there are just far better games out there to spend your money on.
(25 votes, average: 2.80 out of 4)
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